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8th Ed. anybody played chaos dorks?

Discussion in 'Lizardmen & Saurian Ancients Tactics' started by Pinktaco, May 30, 2015.

  1. Pinktaco
    Skar-Veteran

    Pinktaco Vessel of the Old Ones Staff Member

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    Might be playing one in the near future and I've never played them before. That would've been alright, but their ridiculous contraptions and the K'Daai destroyer scares me haha.

    I actually don't fear their infantry that much. They might have superior WS and saves, but ultimately they also only have 1 attacks and are rather expensive.

    What I don't like is getting pounded by artillery, run down by their deamonic train or run into the great K'Daai.

    There's only so much my oldblood can do haha.

    So what are your thoughts about CDs? What should I watch out for and what should I do?
     
  2. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    I did write a Tactica on them. Actually it was like the fourth or fifth one I've ever done so it's quite old, but I've updated it for our new book. Sadly I only played CD since we got the eighth ed book. The CD player in my area moved away. I have lurked on the Chaos Dwarf forum abit. Behold delicious theoryhammer.

    My understanding is the guy I played against played pretty standard lists for Chaos Dwarves. I think most lists in the 2500 points neighborhood use the Iron Daemon War Engine or Ka'daii Destroyer if not both.

    Most players seem to favor going Chaos Dwarf Core and ignore their Hobgoblin options. If they take a BSB, it's a geared up Castellan with the largest infantry block. A L4 Sorcerer Prophet is standard issue (relaly the ONLY Lord option) and he usually hangs out with the artillery line.

    So you basically have one, probably two giant nigh-invulnerable monsters doing the heavy lifting. They are backed by bad-ass artillery and respectable magic. Then you got infantry almost as an afterthought, though if you just barely overcome the artillery, magic, and giant monsters the infantry can beat you. CDs can take chaff, tarpits, heavy cavalry equivalents, MI, or elite infantry but CD players seem to favor the core setup driven by large monsters and artillery.

    Step one is destroy, tarpit, or redirect the big monsters.

    Step two is destroy the artillery line OR engage in close combat with the infantry. If you charge the infantry the artillery can't shoot you. If you go after the artillery instead, the infantry can't shoot you while you are going after the artillery.

    Step Three is to go after what is left (or play points denial with your battered army remnants.

    So assuming you are dealing with a giant K'daii and a big train. if you only see one big'un it will usually be the train since the Iron Daemon Engine is Special, not Rare. The only one to handle the heavies is to magic them, redirect them, tarpit them, and/or take large units of Kroxigor (with buffs to survive shooting).

    If I were gunning for Chaos Dwarfs, I'd take a BRB Slann, at least one Skink priest with Skirmisher bunker, big block of Temple Guard, and a big unit of Kroxigor plus whatever else you like.

    Metal Slann: Hopefully you get Searing Doom and Golden Hounds or you are in for a rough haul. You target the Train and redirect or tarpit the K'daii. Peg it three times with Metal magic and it's dead. Peg it twice and it's a pushover for most of your army. Peg it once and i't manageable for your TG or Kroxigor. You don't have any magical tools for the K'daii but the Metal buffs and hexes should help you outclass the Chaos Dwarf infantry. Note, just about every unit Chaos Dwarfs have is fire resistant EXCEPT for the train, so don't waste Metal attacks on anything but the train.

    Shadow Slann: You want Withering or Okkams, ideally both and you want Pit of Shades if you can get it. WIth Okkam's Mindrazor your units can beat up either of the two giant monsters. With Withering you can soften up the K'daii enough to take down in close combat. Never forget the K'daii needs to take a Toughness test every wound or suffer wounds so you can theoretically kill a K'daii with Withering alone. If they take the little K'daii (if they bother to take the smaller K'daai) they should drop really fast to Withering. Even if it doesn't eat itself, the reduced toughness will at least mitigate the +1 to wounding difficulties with the K'daii.

    Pit of Shades will automatically kill a Magma Cannon, Deathshrieker rocket launcher, and the Dreadquake Mortar. It has a very good chance to kill a train or Hellcannon.

    Both the Enfeebling Foe and Melkoth's Miasma will help your PF units survive enemy attacks and overcome the opposition.

    Light Slann: There is no magic to kill the enemy heavies, but you can seriously reduce the bite of everything else. You can use LIght of Battle to tie up the enemy heavy. Bubbled Pha's protection to mitigate general shooting and Net of Amytok to completely shut down the Dreadquake Mortar or Rocket Launchers. You want to tie up or redirect both enemy big'uns and engage the infantry ASAP, then crush them with your superior magicked stats. Your army list should have extra Kroxigor, Skroxigor, the Razor Standard on your Temple Guard, and GW packing cowboys to make up for your inability to magic away the bad'uns.

    I think squeezing in Tet for some Vangards wouldn't be amiss. Iceshard Blizzard and Comet would be fairly useful too, but I think I'd rather spend my hero points on Saurus with great weapons.

    I am quite fond of WD Slann, but I see Wandering Deliberations as a weak "lore" to take versus CD. Searing Doom is the only good attack spell. Spirit Leech will not help you much unless they take a Hellcannon. Ice Shard just doesn't cut it by itself. There are so many flaming attacks Earthblood will not help much. The magic missiles are all flaming Strength 4 hits which makes them not very useful.

    I don't see High Magic helping much besides Walk Between Worlds and Drain Magic (in case they irresistibly cast Ash Storm). You can always swap for Metal and Shadow, but I really want to be able to cast Searing Doom from turn one. By turn three, it's probably already too late.

    I don't think a tailored ant-CD should not use any dons. Terradons would be easy for their infantry to shoot down and they don't hit hard enough to challenge a Sorcerer Prophet or any artillery with the Hellbound upgrade. Razordons don't hit hard enough to hurt non-chaff. Stegadons are too charge dependent. Ideally you would use Steggies to go after infantry or sharpened horn a big monster, but the infantry is going to be holding back 90% of the time, so they are ONLY useful if you get the charge on K'daii or train. If you don't roll excellent impact hits, the Steggadon will be crushed (assuming it's not shot with artillery first). Troglodons are Troglodons. Bastiladons are slow when you need speed to close the gap with the enemy and their bound spell is sadly a flaming attack.
     
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  3. Qupakoco
    Skink Chief

    Qupakoco Keeper of the Dice Staff Member

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    Agreed with @Scalenex.

    I've played them once in a game of T&T, so it was kind of chaotic to begin with. But I recall my Chameleons and Skinks did wonders on the Manticore guy. Saurus Cav with a SV worked well as usual. Saurus didn't have too much of a problem with the infantry.

    But then again, the other army in the game was Empire so I was cannoned to death. 3 armies on a table that is cut into 6's really limits your deployment options for scouts. The treachery cards really helped a lot in that regard.
     
  4. DrMad
    Skink

    DrMad Member

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    Scarvet CO, LA, dragon helmet, dawnstone, Relic sword
    This guy can hold the Destroyer at least for a while and maybe get some wounds in. He has a 1+ rerollable and a 2++ vs flaming attacks, hits the K'daai on 4s and wounds on 5s and then he gets his 4++. While the K'daai hits on 4s wounds on 2s, then you get a rerollable 5+ and a 2++. And against his S4 auto hits you get a rerollable 2+ and a 2++.

    Oldblood CO, Glittering Scales, Dragonbane Gem, Ogreblade, OTS
    This guy might even kill the K'daai. He gets T6 1+ 2++ vs flaming. He hits the K'daai on 3s wounds on 5s while he has to reroll his 4++. The K'daai hits back on 5s and wounds on 2s and you get a 5+ 2++ against that.

    Send these guys in together and they inflict 1.55 wounds on average while (one of them) taking 0.25 wounds in return. If you get one of these guys in the flank you'll win combat by 1 wound, a flank and a charge and the K'daai will pop due to his unstable rule. And there wasn't any magical buffs or previous damage involved. Now your guys are ready to take on the rest of the army, while having a 2++ against flaming warmachines.

    Just theory and math hammer ;)
     
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  5. Pinktaco
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    Pinktaco Vessel of the Old Ones Staff Member

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    Thanks a lot for your answers. I was considering the 2+ fire ward gem on my slann and use him to bait the destroyer haha :spiderman:
     
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  6. Pinktaco
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    Pinktaco Vessel of the Old Ones Staff Member

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    I've been looking at the book, this forum and the CD forum and this is what I've come up with:

    Their lord choice is meh. Only Lvl 3/4 caster. Ash storm is brutal and considered must stop at all cost spell.

    Dark Castellan are regular dwarf hero with stubborn. Can take +2S sword that auto kill flammable models - make sure ash storm doesn't get off!). Overall manageable and can easily be taken down.

    Centaur hero is good, but expensive. Cannot quite get both a 1+ save and great weapon.

    Core dwarf infantry can do some nasty blunderbluss shooting, but overall not that scary. They can, however, be extremely defensive with a 3+/6+. Still manageable.

    Special dwarfs are s bit more nasty. 3+/6+ at WS5 and S5 is tough, but they also cost 17pts each model.

    Out of their war machines I fear the dreadquake machine the most. Can be made very very durable from my understanding. Train is an infantry grinder with both thunderstomp AND impact hit at high strenght. In close combat though only the crew can fight and thus making it a good target for something like a cowboy.

    My biggest fear is the destroyer. The updated rules mean that herp derp we have to reroll any successful wounds on it. At T6 this is incredible frustrating since even the regular old S7 GW will have a hard time. Apparently this monster wasnt ridiculous as is.

    I can spend an OB playing with the monster and hope it fails the toughness test. It likely won't though.

    I'll be bringing metal slann and tetto'eko. Tetto'eko is the best threat for static enemies so that'll do good. Lore of metal will reduce the efficiency of any dwarfs (plague of rust/sword of +1 To Hit and AP) and searing doom will hurt the train.

    My magic can reduce the efficiency of the destroyer, but not make it die any faster. Without a fire ward it'll be very hard to stop. I'll try and fiddle around with my list, but I will not reduce the overall efficiency of my cowboys to eliminate one threat.

    Oh yeah 2 weaknesses of the destroyer: frenzy and Unstable. I could in theory hold it with a armour of Destiny/Dawnstone OB and flank charge with my BSB scar vet. If I win combat it'll lose the +D3 frenzy and likely pop a wound or two. With my current list this is the best Solution. Not adding the unreliable magic <.< :p
     
  7. Irish_Lizard
    Saurus

    Irish_Lizard Member

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    I would recommend death slann over metal,light,high or wandering. The destroyer is worthless against us, just treat it as a 6 wound 4+ save model and poison it to pieces. The iron daemon train can only charge in a straight line so just stick a mounted scar vet/ OB into it and laugh at the 3 s3 attacks. The problems are the magic and the warmachines. The flame cannon will delete units of skrox or TG(or saurus). The core of the army will be 24ish gw dwarfs and 2 blocks of 20 hobgoblins. Ash storm can be negated to a degree by having your units wizard hop from unit to unit. Flyblood is great, heavens is good, death is epically winning.
     
  8. Pinktaco
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    Pinktaco Vessel of the Old Ones Staff Member

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    I suppose it's true about the destroyer. It'll only take 75 shots, which isn't bad.
     
  9. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    I respectfully disagree with @Irish_Lizard (with the Lore of Death anyway, the rest of his advice is solid). Chaos Dwarfs tend to have have the statlines to resist the three Death sniping spells and the short range is a disadvantage with a generally slow moving army. Doom and Darkness would be of limited use. Soulblight and Purple Sun would be great, but that's two spells out of seven
     
  10. Pinktaco
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    Pinktaco Vessel of the Old Ones Staff Member

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    purple sun for the low initative? Although with a 1/6th chance of having the party ourself haha.

    I'm not a big fan of death anyway :)
     
  11. Irish_Lizard
    Saurus

    Irish_Lizard Member

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    Unless I'm mistaken(havent played them in a while) but the characters are s4 while the warmachines are s3 and fate is so nasty wounding on 2s that they will rarely let it off. Doom and darkness is handy for breaking the stubborn 10 block when you get to it, forcing the hellcannons to fail rampage tests or the destroyer to fail frenzy. Spirit leech is the second least useful but destroyers and tar'uks are ld9 and often outside general range. As for lizards being too slow for death snipes, arcane vassal on M6 models who chill with skrimishers means we have the best death magic in the game out performing even DE cav mages.
     
  12. Agrem
    Kroxigor

    Agrem Active Member

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    I play against CD quite frequently as my friend and the usual opponent has them.

    As mentioned the base of the army seems to be the K'dai and warmachines. The core is usually then filled with either only hobgoblins or only dwarfs. Either way the core section is not to be worried about. The goblins are rather weak where the dwarfs are really expensive so their numbers are not that great.

    I wouldn't bother going in close combat with the K'dai. Even though it seems really dangerous it's still almost the same as any other big monster out there. Just pepper it with poisoned shots and it should go down rather easily - remember you don't have to reroll those wounds since you do not do any "to wound"-rolls with poisons.

    The Iron daemon on the other hand is a bit tougher nut to crack but you should be able to pin it down with just about any saurus hero on a cold one. Yes, you'll be stuck in the combat for the rest of the game and perhaps even then you are not able to kill it but it shouldn't do much to you either - just remember to bring great weapon.

    I rarely feel that threatened by the CD army when facing it with lizards. However it is hard to get big wins out of them as they essentially work the same as our army. All the points are tied up in characters, the big monsters and war machines that are hard to reach.

    I don't think you have to that much alter your playstyle against them and you should be able to be fairly aggressive even, maybe even must be in order to neutralize the artillery.

    To summarize I feel that they are rather good match up for Lizardmen and you should have quite nice game against them. Good luck!

    BR
    Agrem
     
  13. Pinktaco
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    Pinktaco Vessel of the Old Ones Staff Member

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    So what if I'm rather low on skinks and big on saurus ? :p
     
  14. Agrem
    Kroxigor

    Agrem Active Member

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    I'd say the same principle still stands. :)
    I'd commit almost all your skinks if you're running low on them to deal with the K'dai. You shouldn't really need much else diverters.

    BR
    Agrem
     
  15. GreenMachine
    Skink

    GreenMachine Member

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    From my experience (maybe six or seven games) Chaos Dwarfs are like High Elves, they have a few tricks that once you figure out makes them not very tough. There has a been a lot of good advice on this thread so I'll just cover those "tricks" I see in almost every game.

    -K'daii Destroyer, skinks don't need to re-roll wounds on him, so all it gets is it's 4+ ward. Enough shots take it down. Second best option is to magic it to death. The last choice I'd say is a character with a +2 against flamming, be very careful through as thunderstomps DO NOT get flaming, so you wouldn't get the ward save and it will destroy any character that doesn't kill it in that regard.

    -Iron Daemon, If you don't have searing doom then a mounted scarvet/oldblood or mounted chief is a good route. The trick is to hide the character in a unit so that it's gun doesn't shoot them off the table (2 rolls on the artillery dice, take best result. BS 3 str 6, D3 wounds) All the iron daemon has in combat is it's 3 crew members and thunderstomp. So, if you're able to take thunderstomp away, you'll likely destroy it or keep it occupied all game. An ancient getting the charge will work nicely too, but it's still wounding on 5's, so that's iffy...the problem with ALL of that is it's gun is very good at taking multi wound stuff off the table.

    -Chalice of blood and darkness is stupid and broken. Just slap your opponent if they take this. Honestly, their isn't much you can do against it besides arcane unforge it OR roll your dispel dice before they can declare they're using it. It's cheesy to do, but fair in my eyes if they're going to use the chalice.

    -Magic save all your dice for ashstorm, that's a must stop spell. Almost every other spell is manageable. Watch out for when people take helcannons with doom and darkness as they'll ruin even our cold-blooded high leadership days.

    -War machines are dealt the same way as any other warmachine. Shoot, magic or tie them up in combat. Ice shard works well. The only difference is when they have the dreadquake, because it get's something insane like seven wounds and armor save. Walk between worlds a character to get close to it is the best option I really have. If someone has a better recommendation, let me know.

    I don't see bull centaurs or blunderbusses that much, but they're nothing particulary sneaky about them. Bulls have a +1 but are only strength 4 so they can usually be ground down.
     
  16. Pinktaco
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    Pinktaco Vessel of the Old Ones Staff Member

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    The chalice made me curious. The only thing making it dumb is people abusing if. If they do in a friendly game I'll never play them again and if they do in a tournament then 0 sportsmanship score for them.

    Other than that thanks for your reply. All advice are welcome =]
     

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